


talk to the wind, talk to the sky

by fakecharliebrown



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, POV Zuko (Avatar), Past Abuse, Platonic Relationships, Post-Canon, i just wanted zuko and aang to bond ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25057819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakecharliebrown/pseuds/fakecharliebrown
Summary: Zuko likes to leave his window open in the evenings. His advisors and servants hate it, hate that Zuko leaves himself so vulnerable to an assassin or other assailant, but after years and years traveling the world and living in the open, Zuko can’t get used to sleeping without a breeze.or; Avatar Aang likes to visit Firelord Zuko, when he needs a break from being the savior of the world.
Relationships: Aang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 68
Kudos: 603





	talk to the wind, talk to the sky

**Author's Note:**

> title from come in with the rain by taylor swift (:

Zuko likes to leave his window open in the evenings. His advisors and servants hate it, hate that Zuko leaves himself so vulnerable to an assassin or other assailant, but after years and years traveling the world and living in the open, Zuko can’t get used to sleeping without a breeze. 

At least, that’s what he tells his advisors when they pester him about it. It isn’t a lie, it’s just not the complete truth. In reality, Zuko likes to leave his window open because Aang likes to visit, when the Avatar responsibilities are getting to him or when he wants a break or when he just starts to miss Zuko. Aang likes to come in through the window, almost always arriving at night, and he is light enough on his feet that Zuko doesn’t wake until Aang settles himself next to Zuko on the bed and begins to play with his hair. 

Zuko doesn’t mind when Aang plays with his hair. He doesn’t mind when any of his friends do it, in fact, even though he can tell it sends his advisors into fits and conniptions. A Firelord’s hair is sacred, they say. A Firelord should not be touched  _ anywhere  _ so casually by anyone other than his lover, and even then his lover shouldn’t be so open and public about it. But Zuko has always been a bit of a rebel, and he likes it when his friends mess with his hair. Katara almost always tries to braid it, commenting on how long it’s getting every time without fail. Sokka likes to try and create a ‘warrior’s wolf-tail’ as he calls it, sometimes putting a braid in it like Hakoda has. Suki doesn’t do much with it, usually just runs her fingers through it from time to time, or reaches up on her tiptoes to ruffle it. Toph most frequently tugs on it to get his attention, after the two of them decided that punching him all the time would literally give his advisors a stress-induced heart attack. 

Aang, though. To be honest, Aang always does something different with Zuko’s hair. Zuko thinks it comes from the fact that he grew up bald, surrounded by bald monks and other bald kids and therefore has no real idea what to do with hair. Zuko knows he’s been learning from Toph and Katara on how to help them style their hair, just to give his antsy hands something to do, but Zuko doesn’t much care to teach Aang the traditional Fire Nation hairstyles so he just lets Aang do whatever he wants. 

The air tonight is hot and muggy and overall unpleasant, enough that it keeps Zuko awake and he begins to consider closing the window, just for one night. Just when Zuko is finally getting fed up, a soft breeze blows in through the window and a weight settles itself next to Zuko on the bed. It isn’t long before a small, cold hand tangles itself in Zuko’s hair, but unlike most nights, the hand stays still. Zuko holds his breath for less than a second before he exhales, slowly, and murmurs, “Close the window.”

The hand disappears, the weight lifts off the bed, and a second later Zuko hears the click of the window latch. Then, after another moment passes, the weight and the hand return to Zuko’s side. The hand runs itself through Zuko’s hair, hair that has grown out significantly since his return to the palace barely a year ago. After a few times through, the hand stills and rests against the side of Zuko’s skull, its chilly fingertips cooling Zuko’s overheated skin. 

Zuko revels in the feeling a moment longer before he shifts slightly, tapping Aang’s leg with his foot to signal that he’s going to roll over onto his other side. Aang lifts his hand, placing it back on Zuko’s head once Zuko has gotten himself situated again. There’s a pensive expression on his face, his normally childish features looking much more grown up in the dark of Zuko’s bedroom. Zuko lifts his eyes to look at his friend, and he considers asking, but he ultimately stays silent. If Aang wants to talk about it, he will. 

Aang is looking at Zuko’s face, as his hand begins to card through Zuko’s hair. The repetitive motion is almost enough to lull Zuko into a doze, but the humidity hasn’t left his room yet and he’s still too warm to sleep. Aang frowns, a crease forming between his eyebrows. It takes Zuko a moment to realize that Aang has come alone; normally, Momo tags along after him and curls up at Zuko’s feet on the massive bed. 

“I’ve been in the Earth Kingdom lately,” Aang finally says, “escorting released prisoners and refugees back to their homes.”

Zuko hums in lieu of a response. He doesn’t need to prompt Aang; he knows Aang will continue talking until he’s said whatever he wants to say.

Aang falls silent for a moment, shifting his eyes to gaze out at the darkness beyond Zuko’s bed. There’s something distant behind the grey of Aang’s eyes, something Zuko is too tired to read into. “They all had questions for me, after being—” He interrupts himself, making a soft noise of what seems to be frustration. “They ask about you, mostly.” 

Zuko blinks. “Me?” he asks, his voice raspy from disuse. Aang nods. His fingers catch on a small knot in Zuko’s hair, tugging themselves free. Aang murmurs a soft apology, his hand stalling for less than a second before resuming its previous motion. 

“Some of them want to know what you’re like,” Aang explains. “If you’re nice, or if you’re—” He cuts himself off again. That same frustrated expression crosses his face, his eyes flashing. It’s almost like he doesn’t know what he wants to say. 

No, that’s not it, Zuko thinks. He knows what he’s trying to say; he just doesn’t know how to say it. Concern pangs in Zuko’s stomach. 

“Most of them just assume I wouldn’t let you take the throne if you were corrupt,” Aang continues. “Those are the ones that ask—they want to know how the war ended. What Sozin’s Comet was like.” Aang presses his lips into a thin line. A shadow passes over his face. “Some of them want to know where I was. Why I disappeared. How I—how I could just let this happen.” 

“That’s not fair,” Zuko says immediately. 

Aang laughs, but there’s no mirth behind it. It sounds dull and hollow. It sounds wrong. “Isn’t it, though? I’m the one who was stupid enough to fly away in the middle of a storm and get frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years.” 

Zuko clenches his fist in the duvet. The sheets are silky beneath his fingers, a feeling he still isn’t entirely used to after spending sleepless nights under the stars without so much as a pillow. “You were twelve. You were a kid.” 

“I still  _ am  _ a kid,” Aang argues. “Why was one hundred years ago any different than it is now?”

“You weren’t a fully-realized Avatar one hundred years ago,” Zuko says. “One hundred years ago, you would’ve died alongside the rest of your people and then Sozin would’ve started the war anyway while we waited for the new Avatar.” 

Aang is quiet, but Zuko knows his words are rattling around inside of the Air Nomad’s head. Zuko sighs, snuggling deeper into his pillow. The two of them fall silent after that, for so long that Zuko has nearly fallen asleep again when Aang speaks. 

“Sometimes I have dreams about Roku, and the other Avatars,” he says. “I don’t think they’re just dreams, though. I think the other Avatars just—I think they just want someone to talk to.”

Zuko hums to acknowledge the younger boy’s statement. Aang’s hand running through his hair has filled his chest with a sense of contentment and calm that wasn’t there before he arrived, dashing away any uneasiness he might’ve been feeling. 

“Roku talks about his shortcomings, sometimes,” Aang elaborates. “I think he feels bad that the war ended up falling on my shoulders. And sometimes I agree with him, and sometimes I get mad at him because I was—I  _ am  _ still a kid, and I shouldn’t have had to save the world but then other times I just—” He pauses, a strange expression on his face. It almost looks like he can’t decide how he feels, and therefore doesn’t know what expression to be making. Zuko lifts a hand to tap his knee and draw him out of his thoughts. “I just wish he’d stop talking,” Aang finishes. “So that I don’t have to listen to him anymore. Is that—selfish? Am  _ I  _ selfish?” 

Zuko hesitates. There’s a thin line between being selfish and helping yourself flourish, a piece of wisdom he’s picked up over the years. He isn’t sure if he got it from Iroh or from Ursa, but ultimately he doesn’t care. “I think that depends,” Zuko starts, “on why you don’t want to hear him out.” 

Aang’s hand stills. Zuko taps Aang’s leg twice, the symbol for Aang to let him go. Aang is quick to take his hand away, allowing Zuko the room to sit up without jostling his companion. “He’s always talking about how he wished—he wishes he’d been decisive,” Aang explains, “and that he’s sorry he failed to stop Sozin before he died.”

“That bothers you?” Zuko asks, his voice impossibly loud in the quiet of the night. 

Aang presses his lips into a thin line, pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them. His gaze has drifted to the closed window, his eyes watching the still night beyond the palace walls rather than watching Zuko. “If he’d killed Sozin,” Aang says, his voice small, “then you wouldn’t—you never would’ve existed.” Zuko sucks in a sharp, shocked breath. Aang’s face crumples at the sound. “I  _ know  _ that’s stupid, and it’s selfish but you’re—you’re my  _ friend,  _ and I don’t want you to not exist, even if that means that the world had to suffer through one hundred years of war and not to mention all the stuff your family has put  _ you  _ through and I just—” He breaks off. 

Zuko sits, shell-shocked, for several long moments before he finally musters the will to close his mouth. 

“I’m the Avatar,” Aang whispers, “and that means my duty is to the good of the world. But does that—does that really have to mean that I can’t be happy, too?” 

Zuko still can’t find the words. Are there any words he can say in a situation like this? 

“The world wants me to give more and more,” Aang says, barely audible, “But sometimes I don’t think I have anything left to give.” 

Zuko reaches out to touch Aang, but his hand freezes halfway there and drops limply onto the bed. “I think,” Zuko finally says, “that you need to learn that selfishness isn’t—it’s not the condemnation you think it is.” 

Aang looks up at him, confusion in his eyes. 

“Everybody is a little selfish, sometimes,” Zuko says. “I’m selfish when I leave the window open for you, because it means I want you to come visit instead of tending to Avatar duties and it means I’d rather put my life in danger to spend time with friends than protect myself as the Fire Nation’s only hope at a better future.” He pauses. “Selflessness shouldn’t come without a little selfishness, because if you’re not careful you’ll just—everyone else will walk away fulfilled and you’ll walk away an empty shell.”

Aang looks like he wants to cry, but he smiles anyway. “When did you get to be so wise?” 

Zuko shrugs. “I don’t think I am. It’s just shared life experience.”

Aang chuckles softly. He reaches up and runs a hand through Zuko’s hair again, his fingers trailing down a lock next to Zuko’s face. His fingertips brush against the left side of his face, his fingernails just barely scraping the scar, but Zuko stiffens nonetheless, and Aang drops his hand faster than lightning. 

“Sorry,” Aang says. “I wasn’t paying attention.” 

Zuko relaxes a little bit, breathes the tension out of his body, and shakes his head. “‘S fine,” he mumbles. “Don’t worry about it.” 

Aang stares at him, and his eyes are so sad it makes  _ Zuko  _ want to cry. “What happened to you?” he breathes, the question barely there. 

Zuko opens his mouth, almost instinctively blurts out a deflection or outright denial of the question, but suddenly he’s filled with restless energy and he doesn’t want to say no, this time. He’s tired of keeping it all inside, tired of hiding. Tired of cowering from the shadow of a man who isn’t even  _ there.  _

“Come on,” Zuko says quietly. “I want to show you something.” 

Aang watches him, eyebrows furrowed, as Zuko slips out of bed and pulls on his robes, though he foregoes the shoulder-piece and leaves his hair as is. Zuko turns away to approach the door, and he doesn’t hear Aang’s footsteps, but he feels the gust of wind at his back that tells him Aang is behind him. 

-

The two walk silently through the deserted halls of the palace. It’s an eerie feeling to be out of his room at night, almost feeling as though he and Aang are the only people in the world, the only people that exist. Zuko doesn’t like to wander the palace, as he once did before he ditched his father once and for all, and before his banishment. The palace is still steeped in trauma, still filled with shadows Zuko would rather not see. His room—his new one, after he’d set the bed in the official Firelord quarters aflame during his first week on the throne—is the only place where he’s safest, the only place where Ozai’s shadow cannot reach.

Zuko leads them past the war room, though the sight of the curtained door makes his gut churn. He can feel Aang’s eyes on him, wondering where they’re going, but he doesn’t stop until he’s found the room he’s looking for. The door is ornate, but significantly less so than most other rooms in the palace. Zuko reaches up with a trembling hand to pull the door open, waiting for Aang to enter before he slips inside. The room is—it’s huge. It was made to fit hundreds, maybe even thousands, and it did, the last time Zuko recalls it being used. It’s entirely fireproof, carved of marble and other stones. Zuko walks up to the raised stage on which the worst moment of his life occurred, and scans the room. If he turns his head, he can see exactly where Azula and Iroh watched it unfold, joined by the other members of the War Council where Zuko had spoken out of turn. 

If he turns his gaze forward, he can see exactly where Ozai stepped forward, and he almost feels his stomach drop into his feet and his heart crawl into his throat the same way it had four years ago. The anniversary isn’t for a month or so, but it all comes rushing back to Zuko all the same. 

The strangest part about this room, though, is how silent it is. The only thing Zuko remembers more than the pain is how  _ loud  _ it had been, how the crackling fire mingled with Zuko’s agonized screams and the roaring cheers of the spectators, until it formed a cacophony loud enough that Zuko passed out. But now, the room is so quiet Zuko thinks he’d be able to hear Aang’s footsteps, something even Toph struggles with sometimes. 

“This is where it happened, isn’t it?” Aang asks. He steps up to stand beside Zuko. 

“Yeah,” Zuko says. His mouth is dry. “It was my father who did it. I spoke out against a plan during his war meeting and he—” He pauses, considering his next words. His hands are shaking so hard, he’s sure Aang has noticed, even though Zuko’s sleeves fall past his fingertips. “He said I needed to learn respect, and suffering would be my teacher.” 

Aang is quiet. He taps Zuko’s wrist twice, and Zuko responds by taking Aang’s hand in his. 

Zuko can’t tear his eyes away from the place where Ozai had come out. “I was on my knees, pleading for—mercy, I guess, and he brought his hand toward my face and it looked—my mother used to do that, before she kissed my forehead goodnight, and for a split second—”

“You thought he was going to comfort you,” Aang finishes. 

Zuko’s good eye is stinging with unshed tears. He squeezes Aang’s hand. “I thought he was going to forgive me,” he whispers. “His hand was warm, and it was nice and then—and then it was on fire.” 

Aang lets that hang in the air for a moment, before he asks, “How old were you?”

“Thirteen,” Zuko breathes. Aang squeezes his hand, as Zuko finally feels his tears spill over. “I spent so long trying to get him to love me again, to forgive me, I never even considered—I never even thought about the fact that if he ever really loved me at all, he wouldn’t have burned off half of my face.” 

“Zuko,” Aang starts. 

“I know that now,” Zuko interrupts. “I know it was cruel and it was wrong and I didn’t deserve that and he should rot in prison just for doing that alone, never mind all the other awful things he’s done, but I was—a scared kid. I didn’t know any better.” 

“Zuko,” Aang says again, “please open your eyes.” 

Zuko shakes his head. 

“Why?” Aang asks. 

“I can’t stop picturing him,” Zuko admits. “Every time I look around this room, he’s here.” 

“Zuko,” Aang says, “open your eyes.” 

Zuko hesitates, before he opens his eyes and turns to look at Aang. Aang smiles up at him, squeezing his hand, and says, “He’s not here, Zuko. It’s just you and me.” 

Zuko stares down at his friend for several long moments, before suddenly he’s crying—sobbing, really—and his knees give out on the cool marble floor. Aang goes with him easily, kneeling beside him and rubbing soft circles into the back of his hand as Zuko mourns a childhood he never really had, a father’s love that was never his to begin with.

Zuko slumps forward, resting his forehead against Aang’s chest as his sobs taper off into silent tears, and Aang lets him, wrapping one arm around the older boy and using the other to run his fingers through Zuko’s hair. 

“He’s still here,” Zuko mumbles against Aang’s chest. 

Aang hums softly. “That’s okay,” he says quietly. “I’ve defeated him once before. I can do it again.” 

Zuko can only cry, protected in a way he wasn’t four years ago. 

-

The evening air is cool against Zuko’s face as he opens his bedroom window. He reaches up behind him and tugs his hair free from its topknot, setting the crown and the pin down on his vanity as he pads over to his bed. 

Just as he’s about to fall asleep, a soft breeze blows in through the window, and a weight settles itself next to Zuko on the bed. A small, cold hand tangles itself in Zuko’s hair, smoothing out the tangles and carding through the dark locks. Zuko snuggles deeper into his pillow, allowing himself to be lulled to sleep by the repetitive motion of Aang’s hand. 

He will wake up alone tomorrow morning, as he always does, the closed window being the only sign that Aang was ever there. 

He smiles.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> first atla fic!! this was fun i liked writing the characters <: hope i did them justice!
> 
> as always come check me out on tumblr @acedabi or @fake-charliebrown


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